Children of the Air

by Mark Eddy Smith

Overview

Two eagles awake to a rumble of thunder, or rather, a helicopter that hovers overhead. While mama eagle flees, papa defends their eggs but is eaten, or rather, captured, by the insectile monster, leaving mama to raise three eaglets by herself.

Mary feels a similar loss and stress, but abandonment is a different kind of monster. To worsen matters, her teenage daughter, Lissy, is surlier than most eaglets, so when Mary’s father, Ed, dislocates a hip, the idea of sending Lissy to assist him seems to “kill two birds” until she discovers he’s already taken on a helper—a runaway boy with a wounded owl. Reluctantly, she leaves Lissy with him anyway.

You’ll like Ed’s dog, Shep.

This is not a whimsical tale, but an illustration of the banality of evil, the impotence of good, and the persistent, nagging suspicion that the world makes a beautiful kind of sense all the same.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939636010
Publisher:	The Mottled Speck
Publication date:	02/02/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

Mark Eddy Smith is a freelance designer, fiction editor, and author. He lives in New Hampshire with his mother, and across the river from his sister and nephews. He also farms Christmas trees, delivers mail, and helps a wounded veteran tend his hügelkultur beds.

Editorial Reviews

2022-01-03
Humans and animals in small-town America unite and diverge in this novel about families and devastating loss.

Mary Peabody loves her freethinking 13-year-old daughter, Melissa, but needs a break. Motherhood hasn’t been easy, especially since Lissy’s father abruptly left three years ago. Mary sends Lissy to the teen’s recently widowed grandfather’s farm for the summer. But as Mary spends most of her precious solitude watching TV, will her resultant guilt overwhelm her? Surprisingly, her life parallels Corwynn’s, an eagle nurturing three eggs in her nest in the dense woods not far from Lissy at her grandfather Ed Nowlen’s home. When humans capture the eaglets’ father, Corwynn—worried she won’t be able to care for her babies alone—contemplates abandoning the eggs. Other colorful characters gradually join the story: an injured owl; a high schooler fleeing his “meaningless” life and abusive father; and Ed’s loyal dog, Shep, who, like his owner, shows copious signs of his advancing age. They form a series of fractured families learning to rely on others, though some of them prove selfish or even outright malicious. In this somber tale, Smith writes in a beautifully simple style. This matches the animals’ outlook; they live in the moment, as the narrative focuses on singular tasks, such as Corwynn hunting for food. The animals’ perspectives can also be endearing. Birds, for example, see humans with “malformed wings,” and Shep’s name for Ed is “Good.” But this story is largely humorless, teeming with characters not ready to say goodbye, from Ed still mourning his wife to Lissy viewing high school as the unwanted end of her childhood. Similarly, there’s a sad death or two as well as a violent act with long-lasting repercussions. The novel is not all gloom, though, as these glimpses into varied but comparable lives create a truly rewarding experience.

Indelible characters, two-legged or otherwise, power this superb, melodramatic tale.

Kirkus Reviews